The present invention relates to an electrical card connector, and particularly to a stacked electrical card connector having a combined shielding housing for receiving two electrical cards.
As the popularity of notebook computers increases, electrical cards are becoming more common for increasing storage capacity and processing speed of stored data. Thus, electrical card connectors are commonly used to connect a peripheral device to the computer. Most current electrical cards and electrical card connectors conform to the standards of PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association).
A prior art electrical card connector is disclosed in Taiwan Patent Application No. 85103753 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,275,573, 5,451,168, and 5,383,789. Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, the electrical card connector comprises a header 7, a frame 8 for connecting with the header 7 and a card ejection mechanism 9. The header 7 covered with a shielding plate 71 is attached to the frame 8 and defines a plurality of passageways 72 for receiving a plurality of contacts 73 therein. The card ejection mechanism 9 is mounted to an outer side of the frame 8 and comprises a push rod 91 and an ejection member 92 attached to an end of the push rod 91. Accordingly, the ejection mechanism 9 can conveniently eject an electrical card inserted in the electrical card connector. Since the connector can only receive one electrical card, the requirements of current trends in the development of personal computers cannot be met.
To meet the demand for an increase in data storage capacity of personal computers, a stacked electrical card connector, such as those disclosed in Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 83112268 and 86210606, is introduced. Referring to FIG. 2, a conventional stacked electrical card connector 6 is formed by vertically attaching two single connectors together. A pair of holes 63 is disposed at ends of upper and lower arms 61, 62 of the stacked connector 6 adjacent to a header (not labeled). The upper and lower arms 61, 62 are fastened together by a bolt (not shown) extending through each hole 63. A shielding plate 64 covers the header of the connector 6 for preventing electromagnetic interference from disrupting signal transmission. As only the header is covered by the shielding plate 64, problems arising from electromagnetic interference cannot be entirely eliminated. Furthermore, a plastic member of the ejection mechanism mounted on the conventional stacked connector not only increases the number of components and complicates the manufacturing process, but it also increases the dimension of the connector, which is unfavorable for notebook computers. Thus, an electrical card connector having a limited number of components and a reduced dimension is requisite to be in line with the present standards of PCMCIA.